“You can’t tell Rand where the werehouse is,” Calaphase said, with quiet authority. Calaphase and I had met most often at weekly meetings at Manuel’s Tavern, with Saffron and our mutual friend Jinx. My memory from Manuel’s was just gleaming blue eyes flashing across the table, but close up his hair was wiry gold, his skin like polished ivory. “You know the rules.”
“I know, I know,” I said, still avoiding his eyes. “I won’t out an Edgeworlder. But that’s going to make things difficult. Someone’s got to analyze the crime scene, take pictures of the tag. Secrecy will make it harder to find the bastards that killed Revenance-”
“Bastard s?” Calaphase asked. “Plural?”
“The tag had the same motifs as the one that killed Revenance,” I said, “but not the same style. They were inked by two different people. This isn’t one tagger. It’s a crew.”
Calaphase stared off into the distance, thinking. “This is bad,” he said. “Revenance dead. Two more vamps missing, plus Josephine. And now this attack. Look, talk to your pet cop-”
“Andre Rand is not a pet,” I said. “He’s like an uncle. I can’t believe he hung up on me.”
“I can’t either, Dakota, but call him back,” Calaphase said, again with quiet authority. “We’ve got to investigate this, but we can’t lead cops to the werehouse. Rand will have to work through you. Get him on board and ask him what evidence you need to collect.”
“I’m not a crime scene investigator, Cally-”
“Then learn what you need to do,” Calaphase repeated. “Get a copy of Criminology for Dummies if you have to. When you come for Cinnamon on Thursday, you can take pictures-”
“Wait, what about Thursday,” I said. “I’m coming back tomorrow.”
“No, Dakota,” Calaphase said, staring off into the distance with the same quiet finality. I glared at him, about to speak, but he abruptly looked over, his blue clear eyes meeting mine. I quickly looked away at the table, and he sighed. “I’m not going to put the whammy on you. You can look at me. Please. Look at my face, if not my eyes.”
Reluctantly I looked up, not quite directly meeting his gaze. It was a pity that he was a vampire, that his eyes could project his aura and work on my will. Otherwise I would have enjoyed gazing into them, two gems of blue sky embedded in a statue of dark cruelty.
“The werehouse is a private haven for a private affliction,” he said gravely. “No police, no outsiders-and especially no fresh meat on the full moon.” His eyes sparkled. “Unless you’re planning on providing a one-time catering service for Wednesday night’s hunt.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “When you put it that way-what time on Thursday?”
“Right at six-the moon will just be coming up, but the sun will just have gone down, so I can protect you,” Calaphase said, taking a sip of his Frappuccino. He got the same pained expression, and this time I was certain it wasn’t a brain freeze.
“What gave you the idea to eat human food?”
“Not a what,” Calaphase said, eyes still closed, now just as clearly savoring the taste. “A who. You, Dakota.” His eyes opened, catching the shock in my glance before I looked away, and he laughed. “This is the Saffron diet. You told her to try human food.”
“I did?” I asked… and then I remembered. “I did. When she was thinking about becoming a vampire, she told me she’d have to give up human food-”
“And you said, ‘Why? Aren’t you going to even fucking try it?’” Calaphase responded, miming my diction uncannily. “And so she did. Every vampire tries eating rare steak and pukes it up. Saffron analyzed vampire digestion, started off with sugar water, and built up from there.”
“So… if it’s so bad, why torture yourself? Are you going vegetarian-”
“Hell, no,” Calaphase said. “I love the taste of blood. But… Saffron’s a daywalker, Dakota. She can stand in the sun and not catch fire. And she thinks a diet of human food-ahem, a diet of food humans eat-has a lot to do with that.”
“Did Revenance follow the Sav-uh, ‘Saffron’ diet?” I asked, pleased and horrified: pleased that vampires were cutting back on blood, and horrified that it might loose these predatory superhumans onto the daylit world. “He lasted a long time under a cloudy sky.”
“So it did work,” Calaphase said. “Revy always was bolder than me. Since I started the diet, I’ve felt less oppressed by the daystar, but I’ve not been brave enough to face it.”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry,” I said quietly. “He survived the clouds… but direct sunlight killed him.” That unpleasant reminder hung there between us, and Calaphase took a sip of his beverage, again staring off into the distance. Eventually I filled the gap. “So… where are you on the Saffron diet?”
“I could show you. Canoe is my current favorite restaurant in the area,” Calaphase said. “You’d like it. I should take you there.”
I blinked. “Did… you just ask me out?”
Calaphase blinked as well. “No, I was just thanking you for-” he began… and then stopped. Then he looked me straight in the eyes, blue gems gleaming in that handsome statue, and said, with quiet confidence, “Yes, I did. Would you like to go to Canoe, Dakota?”
My heart leapt into my throat and I felt my face flush. Oh. My. God. I had just attracted the attention of a vampire, one who probably chased his steaks with O Positive. Very bad news. I don’t like vampires. I certainly don’t date vampires. And why was I thinking of dating, when I was dating Philip Davidson… Philip, who was off in Virginia, and who was never here?
“I don’t give blood,” I blurted.
“Never on a first date,” Calaphase said with a smile. Then the smile faded. “I’m serious. Never on a first date. It means as much to me as sex.”
“Then how do you live?” I said, brow furrowing. I don’t trust vampires because I was trained as a chemist. Vampires were powerful and fast-so something had to be powering those hyperactive metabolisms. If blood was no richer in calories than a good Frappuccino it would take something like a gallon a day to feed them-and a human can’t safely donate more than a pint of blood every few months. “I mean, the amount of human blood-”
“Cow’s blood, actually,” Calaphase said, a bit embarrassed. “Kosher butchers have been selling it to vampires, both above and below the table, for hundreds of years.”
I blinked.
“I can show you where I buy it,” he said, sipping his Frappuccino.
“I think I’d prefer Canoe for our first, uh, date,” I replied, with a nervous little laugh.
“Call it a dinner in thanks for your service if it makes you more comfortable. Besides, the Lady Saffron doesn’t share well with other clans,” Calaphase said. “Still… is that a yes?”
We were just staring at each other now. I was afraid to breathe. Did Calaphase breathe? Saffron would say, if he eats, he breathes, but I wasn’t sure; come to think of it, vampires were magic. Could his metabolism involve magic? Would our date?
“Are you free tomorrow night?” I said suddenly.
“Yes,” he said. “No-damnit, yes. I will have to return to the werehouse, but I can take a break around dinnertime. I’ll meet you at the restaurant. You’ll feel safer.”
“I’ll feel safer or you’ll feel safer?” I asked, tugging the ring on my collar. “I know I’m safe around a vampire, unless you want a ‘Lady Saffron’ garlic enema. Don’t trust yourself?”
“Oh, I trust myself completely,” Calaphase said, staring straight at me. “No matter how good the dish looks, I know the stew tastes better if you let it simmer.”
Calaphase’s phone rang, more werehouse business, and while he spoke I excused myself with a nervous wave, hopped in the blue bomb and fled out into the dark. My brain was buzzing: finish the paperwork for the Clairmont Academy, buy Cinnamon’s books, get the Prius fixed up, find a good lawyer to handle the adoption and the Valentine Foundation’s missing payments, and, oh, yeah, track down a graffiti killer. There were a thousand things to do.<
br />
But mostly my brain was buzzing with the obvious: I was having dinner with a vampire. Oh, man. How did that happen? And why was I so jazzed about it? My palms were almost as damp on the wheel as they had been when Cinnamon had been ready to rip my head off.
I tried to force myself to relax.
So I was having dinner with a vampire. What’s the worst that could happen?
Magical Fallout
“You want me to what? ” I said, bringing the Prius to a screeching stop.
“Stop what you’re doing and stay out of this,” Rand ordered through my Bluetooth headset. I’d called him back, just as Calaphase had asked… but bringing him back on board was proving to be difficult. Rand wasn’t going down without a fight. “This investigation is getting hairy. Having a loose cannon is going to complicate things.”
“But I’ve already started,” I said, and I had. I’d not yet found anything on magical graffiti, but I had found a little on magical pigments and a lot about regular graffiti. Now that I was primed for it, I was seeing graffiti everywhere-on walls, on street signs, even on the street itself. It was hard not to get lost in the raw folk beauty of graffiti, but already I was starting to notice patterns, possibly crews, and even the occasional magic mark, and was convinced we could catch this guy. “In fact, it’s hard to see how I could stop-”
“Try this. Just stop,” he said. “The Atlanta Police Department does not want a registered freelance magician nosing around this case. Especially not if you’re going to help by stirring up a hornet’s nest in the local werehouse and then not even telling us where you were-”
“I tried to tell you before,” I said sharply, “I was not there to stir up a hornet’s nest.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“Trying to get help for Cinnamon,” I said, and the line stayed silent. “She hadn’t changed since she was poisoned… and apparently that shit builds up. She turned early, and I didn’t know where else to take her. I don’t have a radar for evil graffiti. Being there to help was blind luck.”
Rand was silent, so I pressed my case. “Cinnamon’s safe because I took her there, and our werekin friend is alive because I was at the right place at the right time. If you don’t like blind luck, call it dumb luck. Did you really want me to let that boy die, Uncle Andy?”
“No,” Rand said. “No, I’m sorry. The attack’s clearly related to the one on Revenance, so I assumed it was a reaction to you poking around. I didn’t realize it was a coincidence-which actually makes our problem worse. I shouldn’t have hung up on you-”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” I said, starting up the car as the light turned green. I was silent for a moment, just driving, then said, “Not before you got the whole story.”
“Look, the DA freaked when she found out you’d been at the crime scene. We can’t have you connected to the investigation in any way, or we can kiss a conviction goodbye.”
“No way,” I said.
“No way, no how-no investigating,” Rand said. “You’ve got to promise me that you’ll stay out of this-or you might end up attached to the investigation as a suspect.”
“Uncle Andy,” I said. “Are you… threatening me?”
“No, I’m trying to make you see how serious this is,” Rand said. His voice was so stern and important I could almost see his expression. “You have to promise me, Kotie-”
“Oh, please,” I said. I automatically crossed my fingers, then glared at them. I was not going to play this game. “Cross my heart and hope to die? Detective Andre Rand, don’t you think we’re both a bit old for this? This thing murdered a friend, attacked another and almost killed me. I want to help you get this guy. These guys. Whoever it is.”
Rand was silent for a minute. “Fine,” he said. “I love you like a daughter, but I promise you that if you stick your nose back into this I will have you up on obstruction charges.”
“Andre-”
“I mean it, Dakota,” Rand said. “Butt. The Hell. Out.”
And he hung up, leaving me and the blue bomb sailing into Midtown in near silence. Once Midtown Atlanta had been a graveyard of half-filled mid-height office buildings and closed hotels, but now it was having a comeback, with new buildings in brick and stone with nary a bit of graffiti on a one of them, except for a mural, clearly commissioned.
It was new, fresh, vibrant-yet sterile: even though the cars on West Peachtree’s wide one-way expanse held enough people to make a crowd, I felt alone. Sometimes I missed riding my Vespa. No matter how comfy my Prius was, it left me disconnected from my environment.
Then the phone rang, and I blooped it through without thinking. “Dakota Frost,” I groused. “Best magical tattooist in the Southeast-”
“You won’t get many customers with that tone,” the caller said.
“Philip!” I said, smiling with pleasure. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Good to hear yours too, Dakota,” Special Agent Philip Davidson said. You could still hear the warmth, even through the Bluetooth. I wanted to see his face: his wavy brown hair, his cute little goatee, the blue-gray eyes he always hid behind dark glasses. I was glad he couldn’t see me, cheeks red with guilt. I waited a second too long to keep the conversation going, and Philip caught that. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” I said, abruptly, turning onto West Peachtree. “Damnit, no, things aren’t all right. One of my friends, Revenance, was just killed.”
“Rand told me-I’m so sorry. He also mentioned you witnessed a second attack,” Philip said, slipping into his smooth-but-not-accusatory tone of disapproval that made me feel as big as a bug. “But that you refused to divulge its location because it was ‘Edgeworld’ business.”
“That I did,” I said. Philip Davidson and the Department of Extraordinary Investigations had definite ideas on how to treat Edgeworlders, and respecting Edgeworld privacy was about the last thing on their list. “Like I told Rand, it isn’t my place to divulge their secrets.”
“Dakota,” Philip said, voice softening. “I’m not calling to bust your nuts. Rand also told me you were there to help Cinnamon. She hadn’t changed in a few months, had she? Jesus. And that was your first time dealing with it too. That must have been very difficult for you both.”
“You have no idea,” I said, glancing back at my torn rear seats. As my head turned back, the car in front of me pulled away, the car behind honked, and I cursed, “All right, all right, I’m going!” and hooked onto 5 ^th Street into Georgia Tech’s new campus village.
“What are you doing, Dakota?” Philip asked.
“I’m on the last of my rounds of ‘would you deliver the bad news for me, Dakota’ that Rand and her Highness the ‘Lady Saffron’ dumped in my fucking lap,” I snapped. “I’m going to go break the news about Revenance to yet another friend, and while they’re getting over that, I planned to start interrogating them about some weird fucking shit I saw while I was pulling Cinnamon’s childhood sweetheart out of a magic graffiti tag that was eating him alive.”
“ Cinnamon had a childhood sweetheart? From how you’ve described the werehouse-”
“Oh, maybe I’m romanticizing it, but I could tell they had some relationship-and don’t change the subject,” I said. “I’m being serious here. One dead, three missing. Do you really want me to stop? If so, where do you want me to draw the fucking line, Philip? After I saved a kid’s life, but before I find out what we need to stop this shit from killing anyone else?”
“What’s wrong, Dakota?” Philip asked. “I mean, what’s really wrong?”
I’m having dinner with a vampire when I’m supposed to be dating you.
“You’re never here, Philip,” I said. “I haven’t seen you since November.”
“December 4 ^th,” Philip said. “It was a Monday.”
“It was fifteen minutes for breakfast at the Flying Biscuit before you rode off to the airport. Which puts our last real date, what, a month ago today?”
“I’ve been b
usy,” Philip said. “I can’t fly down to Atlanta every week.”
“But you won’t let me come up and see you in Virginia,” I responded, which was true. “Philip, I haven’t even heard from you since… since before Christmas.”
“You’ve found someone, haven’t you,” Philip said.
“Damnit!” I said, screeching to a stop as the light in front of me turned red. “No, Philip, someone found me. Someone just asked me out to dinner, and it’s making me feel guilty. Happy now? Why, why, why do I always have to be the guy in the relationship?”
Crickets chirped. It was that silent on Phillip’s end. After a long pause he finally answered. “Oh. I should have seen this one coming, huh? A girl. And you.”
I laughed. I could see how he jumped to the wrong conclusion,. “Sorry, Philip,” I said. “You don’t get off that easy. You can’t blame this one on the other team. I do still like boys. I just like ones that are here, at least once in a while.”
There was a second silence over the line, as cars streamed down the broad lanes of Spring Street before me, narrowly missing Tech students bolting through the traffic as they darted from the restaurants and bookstore and back again. Finally Philip spoke.
“All right, Dakota,” he said. “You have your date, if that’s what you want.”
He sounded crushed. “Hey, Philip,” I said softly. “That’s not what I meant-”
“No, you’re right,” he said. “I’m never there, and that’s not fair to you. Take your friend to dinner, and that’s OK, but if you’re still
… interested, I’m willing to give us another shot next time I make it down there. If things are as bad as Rand said… well, it won’t be long.”
“I’m sorry, Philip,” I said.
“I am too,” he said. “And sorry about the ‘investigating this on your own’ crack. We really appreciated you helping us track the tattoo killer last year, but please, please, please wait until we bring the problems to you instead of making trouble on your own. I worry about you, Dakota. You’re a… a valuable resource, and I’d hate to lose you. Take care.”
Blood Rock s-2 Page 9
